


A Blessedly Tempting Bet

by Epivet, soft_october



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Anathema is having none of their guff, Bets & Wagers, Crowley caused the tulip bulb bubble, Edinburgh, Humor, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), Ineffable Idiots (Good Omens), M/M, The Arrangement (Good Omens), coin toss
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-30
Updated: 2020-09-30
Packaged: 2021-03-08 00:20:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,858
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26736520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Epivet/pseuds/Epivet, https://archiveofourown.org/users/soft_october/pseuds/soft_october
Summary: After Anathema discovers The Arrangement, Crowley and Aziraphale bicker over who was better at the other’s job. Anathema is taking none of their guff and announces she'll judge their work to settle the matter. Crowley decides to make it interesting. It goes about as well as you'd expect.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 13
Kudos: 60
Collections: GO-Events POV Pairs Works





	A Blessedly Tempting Bet

**Author's Note:**

> Notes: Epivet and SoftOctober discovered they share a brain when they wrote mirror image stories for the Name That Author Round Four collection (Prompt: “Well, this brings back memories.”) See Epivet's  here. Pairing up for the POV event was clearly ineffable.

Anathema didn’t know why she assumed the bookshop would be the least bit tidier than it was. 

She should have known that there would be an incoherent sign in the window, years worth of dust accumulating on the shelves, piles of books stacked haphazardly and shelved according to some archaic and esoteric filing system the likes of which would require a divining rod and some bone runes to decipher. 

“I’m sorry, we’re closed!” a voice rang out from the back. 

“Oh no, I don’t want to buy anything,” she called, and Aziraphale appeared almost instantly with a smile she was certain would never welcome an actual customer. 

“Hello, dear,” Aziraphale greeted her. “How have you been?” 

Instead of responding, Anathema smiled mysteriously, and pushed her hair back with her left hand in a manner that ensured the light would reflect off the ring. 

“I assume  _ you  _ asked  _ him _ ,” Crowley huffed, emerging from the backroom behind Aziraphale. 

Without dignifying the statement with a response (accurate as it may have been), Anathema turned back to the angel, who was beaming at her with the sort of beatific smile he usually reserved for babies and small animals. 

“Congratulations! You two make a lovely pair!” 

“It’s why I’m here actually,” Anathema began. “You’re both invited - I mean, the world wouldn’t be here without the two of you, well, at least I  _ think _ it wouldn’t - but I was hoping -  _ we _ were hoping you could maybe give us a blessing at the ceremony?” Anathema had been operating on a singular wavelength for so long that it would be some time before she could get accustomed to the  _ we _ . 

Aziraphale’s smile fractured almost imperceptibly. “Oh, well - you know of course I  _ would _ but - er - I’m not exactly an  _ authorized agent _ these days, strictly speaking.” 

Anathema smiled and shook her head. “I know! I’d prefer it that way, actually. The Church wasn’t too kind to some of my ancestors.” This was the understatement of several centuries. “But  _ you _ ! You’re more of a - a free agent. Kind of. All the blessings with none of the - hrm - the  _ history _ .” 

Crowley muttered something unintelligible from the corner, and the angel stoically ignored him. 

“If that’s how you feel about it I’d be  _ delighted _ -”

“Performing blessings on request now, angel? For just anyone who walks in through the door?”

Aziraphale opened his mouth to shush him (or at least remind him that Anathema wasn’t just  _ anyone _ ) but he had not anticipated Anathema’s American intolerance for people acting as if she weren’t there. 

“I can rescind your invite if you’d rather not come,” Anathema said, smiling, as she rounded on Crowley. “There’s no need to be skulking in the corner and muttering to yourself.”

“I was not -”

“Sure you weren’t,” Anathema rolled her eyes. “Why are you being so weird about this, anyway? Upset I didn’t ask you first? It’s not like blessings are your line of work.” At this assertion Crowley’s eyes drew together above his nose, and he pointed a finger into the air between them. 

“Oi! You think I can’t bless as well as he can? Blessing’s easy. Say some nice words, let a little energy flow.” He twirled his hands around as sardonically as one can. “Now  _ temptation _ , that’s the tough one. There’s  _ nuance  _ to temptation.” At this flagrant diminishing of his vocation for the last six thousand years, Aziraphale puffed up like a peacock. 

“Surely you’re  _ joking _ , Crowley,” he said. “Temptation the hard one?  _ I _ never found temptation challenging.”

Anathema's eyebrows shot up. “You what?” Her eyes flicked from one to the other like a spectator at a tennis match, trying to work out the puzzle.

“Oh, well. That is…,” sputtered the flustered angel. “You see, we had an…”

“The Arrangement,” interjected Crowley, grinning at Aziraphale’s obvious discomfort. “We were cancelling each other out. I figured no reason we both had to go to damp unpleasant places when one of us could do both the blessing and the tempting. Took a few centuries to wear him down, but he came around.”

Anathema gaped at them. “Are you saying you did blessings?” Her eyes were wide. “And  _ you  _ did temptations? Can an angel even  _ do  _ that?”

“I would say my work was tip top,” tutted Aziraphale. “Hell never sent you any memos.”

“No one in Hell cares about the details, as long as you appear to be doing  _ something _ , hissed Crowley. “ _ I _ had the harder task. Your lot actually pays attention.”

“Are you implying you’re better at blessing than I am at temptation?”

“Not implying  _ anything _ , angel. Simple statement of fact.”

“You’re being  _ absurd _ ,” huffed Aziraphale, tugging at his waistcoat. 

“Absurd?,” blustered Crowley as he stood and began to stomp around the backroom. “ _ You’re _ the one acting as if -”

“Shut up, the both of you!” Anathema demanded. They shut up. Some humans might be awed at their ability to silence an occult and ethereal being. Anathema was not. She was a person used to the room shutting up when she wanted it to. “You’re just talking in circles. Give me your best and  _ I’ll _ judge.”

Aziraphale and Crowley blinked at her. Until her order to quiet and their stunned compliance, they had rather forgotten she was there at all. 

“Judge?” Aziraphale asked, at the same time Crowley allowed his glasses to slip down his nose in his best attempt at incredulity. 

“You heard me. You two will bicker  _ all afternoon _ if we don’t settle it, and I’d like to get back to discussing the wedding.” 

Anthema’s pronouncement silenced the two. She stared impassively as each considered the proposal. 

Crowley took her up first. 

“I’d like to propose a small wager,” he began, in his best tempting voice. Aziraphale heaved an exasperated sigh. “Just to make it interesting, make it  _ worth _ our while.” He glanced over at Aziraphale, who had taken to carefully examining his fingernails. 

“Very  _ well _ ,” he replied, acting rather put upon indeed. “What for?” 

“If I win, you’ll have to buy...  _ new clothes  _ -” he drew out the syllables and Aziraphale looked at him as if he’d just asked the angel to set fire to a church - “ _ and _ wear them. On a date of my choosing.” 

Instead of sucking his teeth, or shaking his head, or any number of other things Crowley assumed he might do, Aziraphale just  _ laughed _ . “Agreed. I  _ will  _ win, of course. And when I do,” His face took on that particular expression which Crowley never wanted to be on the receiving end of. “If  _ I  _ win,  _ you _ have to do a magic act with me.” 

“ _ No _ !” Crowley breathed. 

“Of  _ course _ if you’d like to concede…” Anathema and Aziraphale both turned towards Crowley expectantly. (Anathema because she would like to get this whole thing over with and resume discussing a suitable blessing, Aziraphale because he had been accustomed to Crowley’s moods for over six thousand years and knew that Crowley would break any second.)

“Fine,” Crowley groaned. “Toss for who goes first?” Crowley conjured a coin from the ether, and despite his earlier suspicions, the merest thought of deception never even crossed Aziraphale’s mind. 

“Heads”

Crowley tossed the coin and caught it. “Tails. You go first.” 

Crowley flung himself into an armchair as Aziraphale settled into the sofa with an excited wiggle. Anathema, realizing that this was not to be the quick errand she planned at all, perched on a stool. 

“It was 1601. We both had assignments in Edinburgh, and I lost the coin toss. Come to think of it, I always lost the coin toss. Crowley, that isn’t a fair coin! We’ll discuss that tonight, foul fiend. 

“But as I was saying, it was 1601, late spring as I recall. Despite the rather uncomfortable ride from London, Edinburgh itself was a wonder, the castle sitting high above the bustling city. The walls had been extended after the Battle of Flooden, and everyone wanted to live in their safety. They kept building higher and higher; some of the buildings were seven storeys tall. That’s nothing now, of course, but at the time it was a testament to humanity’s ability to find ways to live closely, in shared security. 

“I found a room near the Grassmarket. Charming couple, the proprietor and his wife. Her grandmother had worked in the kitchens of the castle when French cuisine became all the rage. She made the most remarkable sauces, and, oh, her lamprey pie…Hush, Crowley, you don’t know what you were missing. 

“First, I took care of Heaven’s assignment, a blessing of the king’s second son. A minor miracle to blend in with the castle servants, a hired acrobat for distraction, and the task was easily accomplished. The poor thing had a weak constitution, and Upstairs wanted assurance he would live to adulthood. His older brother was so hearty, I would never have guessed Charles’ survival would be so pivotal.

“Finding the royal infant had been simple. Finding Hell’s target, however, posed something of a challenge. You see, the Clan MacDonald didn’t travel so far from Skye very often. Wise given their feuds with, well, everyone it seems. I spent the next day at a dreadful pub serving the most appalling excuse for claret. Crowley, stop sniggering. 

“It was a terribly unpropitious start. I endured several atrocious meals as I surveilled the rowdiest of pubs. Finally, one afternoon, I heard that a hot-tempered drunk had started a brawl after a patron told him to stop grousing about a one-eyed woman.”

Anathema raised an eyebrow at the casual explanation.

“Ah, you see, he was handfasted to a Macleod but she bore no child within the year so the bond was broken. Unfortunately, she had lost sight in one eye during the year, and the brute cruelly sent her back to her clan on a one-eyed horse led by a one-eyed servant with a one-eyed dog in tow.

“When I arrived, the MacDonalds’ were sprawled over the benches, due either to excess of drink or exhaustion from their pugilism. Probably both. I feigned ignorance of the incident and innocently inquired what had passed. The innkeeper ranted about how the MacDonalds had started a fight and driven away all his customers that day. He was eager to entertain me as I appeared to be his coffer’s last hope for the day. The inebriated ruffians had earlier gone to Leith seeking the best price for their cowhides. Having thus filled their purse, they came to town to indulge before returning to the north. And therein I saw my opportunity.”

Glowing with excitement, Aziraphale paused for dramatic effect and ignored Crowley’s groan.

“The next day I returned to the inn. The MacDonalds were quite hungover and thus more subdued. I approached them with caution.

I said, ‘Good sirs, yesterday at Leith, was it you who sold those wondrous hides of the breed unique to the highlands?’

“MacDonald growled something unintelligible back. I then explained that I had been tasked with acquiring high quality hides with the lush hair of the highland cattle. I asked if he might have more for sale. That got his attention but he then grimaced and said that was all he had for the year. I was, of course, very sympathetic and suggested that if he knew of anyone planning to bring a lot to Edinburgh, I would offer him a handsome commission on the sale. He raised an eyebrow so I forged ahead. I suggested I would have no need to know the  _ exact  _ provenance of such hides as my client was both wealthy and inpatient, with no interest in the details of the transaction. He silenced his companions with a bark.

“He replied carefully, “I might be able to  _ persuade  _ some of my countrymen to part with a few aging head. How many does your master require?” The prospect of such a windfall had quickly sobered him.

“When I replied he wanted several dozen, MacDonald could no longer disguise his interest. I made arrangements for them to contact my man at Leith port, and we parted company. A few weeks later I received word my man had received the hides and paid handsomely for them. A couple months later, I learned the cattle raid had triggered a huge battle. What more could you want from a simple temptation to thievery?”

Aziraphale leaned back into the sofa in smug satisfaction.

“What did you do with the hides?” asked Anathema.

Aziraphale’s confidence flagged. “Well, er, ummmm, I gave them away.”

“Oh?” Anathema tried to suppress a smile.

“Well, what was I going to do with a gross of hides? I sent them to an orphanage.”

Crowley was now doubled over in laughter. “Ah, yes, very evil. Keeping orphans warm.”

“I accomplished the task  _ spectacularly _ , Crowley. What I did afterwards is of no consequence.” Aziraphale felt his cheeks redden as he determinedly avoided looking toward the stairs to his upstairs room.

Crowley immediately sensed the misdirection and began to laugh even harder. “Angel, that rug upstairs, the one you’ve had forever? You kept one of the hides! Not very angelic, receiving stolen property.”

“Really, Crowley. If I’d known you would be so unpleasant about it, I'd never have agreed to The Arrangement!”

“I think that’s quite enough.” Anathema turned toward the awkward pile of limbs occupying an armchair. “You’re up, Crowley.”

“Picture it. Devon. 1839.” (Crowley had been watching a great deal of the Golden Girls lately, and considered it an excellent resource for how a story should begin.) “Aziraphale was too busy getting his bookshop in order -”

“I was also -”

“Hush, angel, it’s my turn now. And he was  _ also  _ tempting half of Parliament for me, which wasn’t that difficult because Parliament was about as easy to bribe them as it is now. Needed them to pass a law that would irritate every single pub owner in England, and thus their clients, and their clients’ friends and relatives. Beautiful bit of work, if I do say so myself.” Crowley spared a moment’s thought for all the havoc that law had wrecked on every level of British society before he continued. 

“Anyway, Aziraphale has an assignment in Devon. Lovely country. Makes lace, lots of it, only apparently there had been far too much automation, and poor little Honiton was struggling to get people to buy their exceptionally detailed, handmade,  _ very expensive _ lace.”  _ Beautiful _ , he thought recalling the work in the first shop he saw upon arriving on a predictably foggy morning. Intricate, full of flowers and leaves and fiddly little things that you would pop out the more you examined it. He remembered thinking how different it was from Burano lace, and yet still made of the same millions of knots, still evidence of outrageous skill. “I stopped by a shop to scope out the situation, see what had to be done.” 

‘“You plan on buying something, sir?” The girl at the counter eyed me like I was about to snatch up a pile of doilies and make off into the night.” He remembered the sharpness of her cheeks, sharpness that spoke to the lean winter, to the decline in demand for the goods her family had been making for the last few centuries. Crowley knew that his clothes, while suitably fashionable, had not quite proclaimed him as a man of the  _ very _ disposable means who would frequent such a shop. 

‘“Sure,’ I mumbled, and before she could shout or call for the army of female relatives that was certainly somewhere within the establishment, bent over their bobbins, I snatched up the nearest handkerchief and proceeded to purchase it.” It wasn’t  _ just _ the nearest. It was all edged with birds and leaves and pears. It reminded him of Aziraphale, and, well, it would be  _ right _ to bring him  _ proof _ of his blessing, wouldn’t it? Just a small token, nothing to - 

“I ask her what been going wrong - why this shop is one of the only ones still open, and she says in perfect waifish fashion ‘Oh sir, no one cares for our lace any longer, ‘tis nothing but the cotton that comes off the awful northern machines that anyone wants!’” 

“She did  _ not _ say it that way-” Anathema interrupted. 

“Close enough,” Crowley replied. “So I thanked her and left the shop, thinking about all the ways I could bring a little less misfortune to the town. 

“Now, a blessing is a special bit of work. It needs to be miraculous enough that the beneficiary will want to say something along the lines of ‘Well thank God for that’ or whatever it is She likes hearing these days, but not  _ so _ miraculous that they won’t believe it's anything more than some moving in mysterious ways nonsense. And at this point I had been around on Earth long enough to know how to get the public really fired up about some overpriced product or another.” Crowley paused, remembering Holland, and a certain fancy tulip he designed for a poor farmer in the 1600s. 

“What’s that?” Aziraphale asked, thinking the pause was central to the story. (He was correct.) 

“Advertising,” Crowley replied with a smile. 

“It was just a matter of finding the right person, you see? And lucky for me, I knew  _ just _ the right person because I’d met him in my  _ own  _ line of work. He was a designer, and had begged and pleaded and eventually tried to sell his soul to obtain the most important job of anyone’s career at the time. Royal Dressmaker. And not just  _ any _ dress for  _ any _ royal. This was supposed to be the wedding dress of Queen Victoria herself.

“Once I had the man, all that was left to do was ensure that certain samples of Honiton lace would find their way to him at the right time. He suddenly found himself inspired to drape the dress with lace from top to bottom, and the next thing you know ol’ Vicky herself is walking down the aisle,  _ covered  _ in the stuff. 

“Of  _ course  _ my plan went off without a hitch. People  _ love  _ a royal wedding, no matter how much they proclaim to pretend otherwise, and as soon as every landed gentry saw the Queen draped in all that lace, well, I didn’t have to lift a single finger in order to rejuvenate an entire cottage industry. I went back a few months later, to visit the same shop. Poor girl was up to her ears in new orders,”  _ and her cheeks were full and pink and healthy _ “they had women working in the  _ showroom _ for someone’s sake. By the next year there were shops open all over the town, the lace industry was booming, and it still is to this very day.” He would know. Crowley popped over not three weeks ago to purchase a new tablecloth for a house he was furnishing in the South Downs. He wouldn’t show it to Aziraphale until it was  _ perfect _ . “A perfect blessing if I ever saw one.” 

Crowley finished his story with a small flourish of his fingers. 

“You - you helped design Queen Victoria’s wedding gown?” Anathema said, with a blank, neutral sort of expression that Crowley felt was quite dismissive of his  _ fantastic  _ story. 

“I did,” he replied, evenly. 

“It  _ was _ rather lovely,” Aziraphale admitted. 

Crowley turned his face away, in case someone attributed the flush on his face from something other than the heat of the room. 

“Anyway,” he muttered. “I thought you were about to declare a winner.” 

Anathema pulled out her phone and began tapping away at the screen, and the cadence of her fingernails did not bode well for either of them. Unable to realize doom when it was standing right in front of them, despite all their prior experience in that particular area, Aziraphale and Crowley merely stared at her with impatience.

“My dear girl, would you  _ please  _ proclaim a winner before doing whatever it is you young people do with those gizmos?” prompted Aziraphale in a clipped voice.

“Give me a minute. I need to do a little research.” Her eyes remained fixed on the screen.

“Research? What is there to research? Mine was by  _ far  _ the better miracle; I saved a whole town, an entire  _ industry _ .” Crowley stood and shoved his hands in his pocket as he paced the backroom.

After a few minutes that  _ ought  _ to have felt inconsequential to six-millenia-year-old beings, Anathema cleared her throat.

“Aziraphale, you did indeed tempt Donald MacDonald into raiding the Macleods’ lands and stealing many cattle. This resulted in a battle at Coire na Creiche…” began Anathema.

“Ah ha! So I  _ did  _ do extremely well. I win the bet.” Aziraphale announced triumphantly.

“Not exactly. The battle was the final straw for the other clans, and the privy council stepped in to end the bitter feud. Aziraphale, you triggered a sequence of events that resulted in an enduring peace between the MacDonalds and Macleods. There was a release of prisoners and a feast. Essentially they all lived happily ever after.”

Crowley cackled at Aziraphale’s sputtering. “Not to mention the orphans! See? What did I tell you? Temptation takes nuance. Go overboard and it can backfire like  _ that _ .” He snapped his fingers. “ _ I _ win, angel.  _ You’re  _ getting a new wardrobe..”

“Not so fast, Crowley,” Anathema cautioned. “I  _ thought _ the town’s name sounded familiar.” 

“Oh? Something  _ revelatory _ about Honiton?” 

“Look at this!” Anathema whirled to show him a picture on her phone. It was of a beautiful wedding dress, with intricate, tasteful lace gracing the neckline and sleeves.”

“Not really my style.” Crowley then added diplomatically, “Though I’m certain you could make it work, if you wanted to.”

“Look at the  _ price _ !” she demanded. 

Crowley did. He blinked. 

“Are you certain it should be  _ that _ many zeroes?” he asked, dubiously. Of course the wedding industry was a racket, finest bit of absurdity Downstairs had ever come up with. “Please, I know the whole thing is just an excuse for people to spend a ridiculous amount of money all just too -”

“It’s your  _ fault _ .” Anathema groaned. “All of it.”

“ _ My _ fault -”

“That lace was used for Queen Victoria’s wedding gown!” Anathema cried. “Everyone wanted to copy her and  _ boom _ the wedding dress industry was  _ born _ ! I’m going to have to spend - I mean  _ look  _ at these prices!” She scrolled frantically, Crowley’s brain tried to keep up with a running litany of numbers followed by what still seemed to be far too many zeroes. “You did this!” She shook the phone at him, and Crowley was so startled at the particular range of notes that he actually took a few steps back. “Just think about all the money, the tears,  _ the reality tv shows _ . All of them.  _ Your fault _ .” Crowley opened his mouth and closed it several times, and though Anathema was shorter than him by several inches he still had the sense of being loomed over. 

“So it’s a draw?” he asked (he did  _ not _ almost squeak. Demons do  _ not _ squeak.) 

“No!” Anathema exclaimed, now brandishing her phone like a dagger at the both of them “You two messed up your assignments so spectacularly that I can say with confidence you  _ both _ lost!”

“So…” Aziraphale began. 

“So what does  _ that _ mean?” Crowley finished. 


End file.
